September 1: “Times” by Ann Beattie A pretty quiet one. I guess most of these are. Really enjoyed it. Small thing but kinda baffled by the title. I almost never even care about titles but kinda feel like something more interesting here woulda taken the whole up a notch.

a million journals opened for submissions today. Short Story, Long is one of those! ashortstorylong.submittable.com/submit

With every year that passed post-elimae, I feel like it and Coop Renner get less and less credit and recognition, but I more and more see and appreciate the influence on me and exciting lit in general.

Sedaris says something like, unlike when he reads Barthelme, where he appreciates it but doesn’t respond emotionally, this Sanders story makes him SO emotional. I feel the opposite, & kinda wanna argue I’m right, but mostly I just like that art can do that podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the…

September 2 story: “Heaven” by Mary Gaitskill Kind of a miracle of a story. So odd — the first ~1/2 or so basically works like a traditional short story, and then we start zooming through time and the second 1/2 feels like a whole novel in 15 pages, ending in this perfect scene.

September 3 story: “Waste” by Amelia Gray What a treat to dig back into this old collection, rediscover these stories are just as weird & fun & exciting as I’d remembered.

watched To Die For last and it was even weirder and better than I'd remembered and also I keep thinking about how it was written by the same dude that wrote The Graduate

Sideways response but this just reminded me it’s a bummer Twitter kills substack links bc the most recent story on SSL is one of the most fun stories I’ve read in a while and I think a lot of y’all would really enjoy it. ashortstorylong.substack.com/p/martha-by-ma…

September 4 story: “Aunt Jemima’s Old-Fashioned Pancakes” by Mary Miller These stories don’t really have much “plot” or arc or whatever, basically just all vibes, like you’re just living inside them with the characters for 10-20 pages, and it’s a total treat.

BEAUTIFUL late summer Michigan morning for a run

I put down some grass seed this weekend and am excited to see it start growing but in the meantime it’s meant starting my days out in my backyard, hose in one hand and coffee in the other, an incredibly enjoyable, relaxing, and top tier suburban dad way to start the day.

probably this. immediate add to my all-timers shelf

One of my fave forms of eavesdropping is finding someone’s syllabus in the copy room.

kinda dope walking by an office and seeing this as part of a reading packet, ngl

A lot of early submitters using the "tell me something about a Short Story, Long story you read" prompt to rave about Lindsay Hunter's "Female Anatomy," and that the story and my intro encouraged someone to go out and get her novel, which then became a new fave, is just the best.

this is when I go all laser eyes

I think about this book a decent amount. In 01/02, I got into James Kochalka and bought a bundle of stuff from Highwater Books. There’s some gems in here, tho I don’t actually love most, but it was probably the first time I’d ever seen such short short stories.

Yglesias seems like a doof who I only know from when people QT him onto my timeline to dunk on him, and I don't even like Whit Stillman movies, but that this keeps popping up on my timeline due to people not having seen Metropolitan is driving me insane.

This is tomorrowwwww!

Imagine Letterman watching you do what you do and then proclaiming, "that's all you're looking for!" Like being smiled at by heaven.